Bill Maher mocks technology… and makes me laugh

Working with Mashable.com, I write daily about technology sites with names that sometimes make me go “huh? What does this name have to do with what this site does?”. Then there is the whining about the price drop of the iPhone that talked about over on BLORGE.com and here. What he said may not be as funny to others as it was to me, but I had to share. (warning: Adult language in transcript and video)

New Rule: Technology businesses must cut the baby talk. It’s 2007. You’re a rapacious, multi-billion-dollar corporation, not a stuffed animal. This week, Yahoo! announced a deal with Bebo, which will help it compete with Google. I had to Wiki Bebo to find out it’s kind of like Friendster and Woofy. Gosh, I hope they can all band together and save Fuzzleton Village from the evil Snorgs! Grow up! If I want to see uncaring money-making machines with cutesy names, I’d go to a strip club.

And on the iPhone

New Rule: Stop bitching that Apple cut the price of the iPhone. Early adopters always pay a premium. “Early adopters” being a business term meaning “dipshits who stand in line for six hours… for a freaking phone. It’s not a price cut. It’s a repeal on the “Nerd Tax.” If you didn’t have to be the first on your block to have the latest gizmo, you’d now have an extra $200 to spend on your imaginary girlfriend.

Related:

The stuff about breastfeeding is dead wrong, and his insistence on sexualizing breasts in every context (comparing breastfeeding to masturbation, the Hooters thing) is exactly the problem. Contrary to what he seems to think, a breastfeeding mom is NOT putting herself on display for his benefit. The problem here is Bill Maher’s lack of sophistication about the various ways nudity can be socially framed (and IS framed, at least among grownups).

I’m getting tired of supposedly left-leaning males who don’t even bother to try to understand feminism. For some reason they seem happy to work from the same set of stereotypes as the most buttnoggined dittohead.

Hey Jack – Yeah, I should have made mention I didn’t agree with Bill on the breast feeding part, but it was all or nothing with the clip sadly. The tech bits made me laugh hysterically, the breast feeding part I went “Um… you’re totally off base.”

Jack

Unfortunately, there does seem to be a big chunk of the male left (exemplified by Kos of The Daily Kos) that agrees with him–they demonstrate attitudes ranging from Maher’s dismissiveness toward feminism all the way out to plain old misogyny. Which makes me crazy.

Sean, I never thought that you’d agree with that part of Maher’s monologue–Rose raised you better’n that! (Hi to the folks!)